The flagship political podcast of Channel 4 News has found success by effectively ditching audio platforms and instead publishing to Youtube.
The Political Fourcast achieved more than 100,000 Youtube views on average for each episode it published during the UK general election campaign — second only, among the political podcasts Press Gazette assessed, to market leader The Rest is Politics.
Launched in late 2020, the podcast began life as an audio product, Channel 4 News head of digital Mike Deri Smith told Press Gazette last week. But, he said, “we never quite found success with it”.
“We didn’t have the app or the huge news website… or walled garden to power listeners through [to the content].
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“So we thought: ‘You know what, we’ve got to lean into our expertise and do it as video.’”
He said they now “sort of wish we had launched as video on day one, because that’s what all the other podcasts are doing these days”.
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Channel 4 News leaning into expertise in video and correspondents
Unlike prominent audio-only political podcasts such as The News Agents, The Rest is Politics or Electoral Dysfunction, The Political Fourcast is not built around conversation between two or three permanent hosts. It is more laid-back than a Channel 4 News bulletin, but largely foregoes the chattier tone some competitors take.
Instead it resembles a more traditional political analysis television programme like Newsnight, with a Channel 4 News presenter such as Krishnan Guru-Murthy or Lindsey Hilsum facilitating a discussion between experts or politicians.
Deri Smith told Press Gazette: “We know how to make video work, so when we did the podcast as a vodcast, with the quality, the broadcast, the studio, we realised that could be a real selling point, and that could be a point of distinction for us, rather than trying to compete with a very, very crowded field.
“We thought: we can lean into the expertise of our correspondents rather than doing opinion and lean into our expertise of how to make a really quality video output.”
Asked how The Political Fourcast differs now it is a video podcast or “vodcast” rather than a traditional audio podcast, Deri Smith said: “We think about how the studio is going to look. We think about the interaction between the guests.
“We’re not just trying to do the same two people speaking each time, so we’re really thinking ‘who’s the panel? What is a way of us moving this conversation forwards?’ rather than it being the two same politicians or the two same presenters every time.
“[We’re] trying to think what is a studio line-up, what is a really good conversation that we can have that can really get a lot of knowledge and expertise shared among the panel.”
Deri Smith said The Political Fourcast was not “the same sort of opinion-driven content as perhaps others are doing”.
“The medium is evolving,” he said. The podcast is “not two people who are like: ‘Oh, what did you get up to yesterday?’ It doesn’t just need to be a chatty thing. It doesn’t just need to be a true crime thing. It’s also professionalising and becoming more like broadcast. Youtube is looking more like TV, and podcasts need to step up.
“And they can’t just be a Zoom recording you chuck on the internet and hope works. It needs to evolve, it has to professionalise. And so for Channel 4 News, with our expertise, it has to look like Channel 4 News — it can’t be a ropey version of it, it has to be as good as the broadcast, linear version of the output because we hold it to the same standards.”
How going Youtube-first helped The Political Fourcast find new audiences
Deri Smith suggested that, for The Fourcast, going Youtube-first had fixed one of the biggest problems professional podcasters face: discoverability.
Often the only ways for new podcasts to reach potential new listeners are through word of mouth, recommendations in other media or through expensive marketing campaigns. But Youtube, Deri Smith said, is “quite egalitarian because it’s so driven by how much people are actually watching [a channel], how much people are clicking on it”.
“We already have a really strong face on Youtube, and it’s always been a very consistent algorithm that we understand.
“If people watch it for a long time, the algorithm will recommend it, so quality rises to the top. People expect, from even a vodcast, a higher quality product in the production as well as in the editorial.” Each episode of The Fourcast has an average watch time of between 15 and 17 minutes, Deri Smith said.
Publishing to Youtube also had implications for the kind of audience the podcast was getting.
“We’re not just trying to cater to the same 10,000 people who are downloading, of which, who knows, maybe only 2,000 are listening every time,” Deri Smith said.
“We’re reaching 100,000 people who we know are listening for ten, 15 minutes on average every single time. So we know those views are ones you can really rely on.”
Ed Fraser, managing editor of Channel 4 News, said the publisher had “taken a bet here that… video is where the growth in the podcast market, certainly for us, really lies”.
Podcasts, he said, “thrive on conversation and unique perspectives, and we’re embracing that deep conversational style alongside the key ingredients of Channel 4 News to bring something special to every episode…
“I think that comes across — what you’re watching is not just a podcast. You are watching a mini television news programme, a conversational programme which plays to all the strengths of Channel 4 News.”
That extends to visual details: The Political Fourcast is recorded in the Channel 4 News studio in London, rearranged to give it a more lounge-like feel.
Orthodox podcasting opinion advises that publishers should find a regular publishing schedule and stick to it, but The Fourcast releases episodes at more irregular intervals, averaging about five per month.
Deri Smith said they had previously been publishing The Fourcast every week “but we realised that we need to approach every podcast as an emergency vodcast, in the way that we want to be super reactive, rather than three days late, even though it’s video and that takes longer”.
This approach of recording podcasts immediately after major news events has been adopted by other prominent publishers including The Rest is Politics and The News Agents.
“We still want to be faster, even, than the audio output that’s sometimes spending a day in sound design,” Deri Smith said. “We’re trying to be a few hours.”
But ‘computer says no’ to coverage of sensitive topics on Youtube
Youtube is not without its drawbacks, however.
Fraser said: “With Youtube what we find is they are what they call ‘age-gating’ content, which means it is blocked off to viewers, effectively, unless they are signed in and subscribed and aged over 18.
“So a lot of our strong coverage from Gaza has been age-gated by Youtube. And that’s something we’ve been pushing back on, and something which we’ve had very high-level discussions and talks with them about, but they are immovable.
“When you push them, they will review a video, but they will come back with a ‘computer says no’, that their decision sticks. Often it’s because there is stuff in it which is emotive, which they consider harm and offence, but under the obligations that we work to under Ofcom that would not be categorised as something which would breach harm and offence, and we do that to a very professional level.”
Deri Smith said a video which hadn’t been blocked might get “five million views at the height of the Israel-Gaza war.
“When it does get blocked, you might get 20,000.”
Fraser added: “The politicians believed that when they negotiated the Online Safety Act that there would be journalistic carve-outs which would mean this kind of thing would not happen.
“In effect, it’s happening anyway. So because that Act has not come into full force yet, Youtube are sticking with their current modus operandi.”
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